Art Heist: An Update!

Remember this art heist I shared back in March? A refresher: a package, labeled as a Christmas present worth €30, was shipped from Belgium to New Jersey with instructions to be transferred to a temperature-controlled art storage facility. Tipped off by the incongruity of needing to store a “handicraft” in such a high tech environment, Customs Officials seized the package, only to discover it was a 1911 Picasso painting, titled “La Coiffeuse” (“The Hairdresser”) which the Centre Pompidou in Paris had reported as stolen in 2001. The Pompidou can’t nail down a firmer timeframe or suspect, because they only realized the painting was missing when a loan request came in for it and they couldn’t locate it in storage. Three words, guys: routine inventory checks!

The museum sent officials to authenticate the painting in February, and the US Attorney’s office filed a civil complaint to return the painting to France. In typical bureaucratic fashion, the official hand-off didn’t occur until last Thursday, at the French Embassy in Washington:

It’s uncertain if the painting will ever be put back on display at the museum (but here’s hoping!).